Monday, April 02, 2012

Top student entrepreneurs from University of Kelaniya and University of Colombo attended an intensely competitive final of Sri Lanka Flux 2012 – a business challenge created and run by University of Plymouth. Flux is the largest inter-university enterprise competition in UK. Flux bridges the gap between education and the workplace. This year’s event was sponsored by British Council and the University of Plymouth. It was held at the Pegasus Reef Hotel on March 31st and April 01, 2012.

As part of the fast-paced, two-day competition, teams of five students were challenged to create a new business plan title 'Bright future in Tourism'. They spent the day developing their enterprise ideas and plan for a community based business to this title. Over 20 business experts, from companies of other large and small organisations were on hand to guide the students.

A team of staff from the Plymouth University Business School, Dr Dulekha Kasturiratne, Dr Jonathan Lean and Marc Lintern, Head of Employability, worked with colleagues from both Kelaniya and Colombo Universities.

During the competition finals, the team had just ten minutes to pitch their strategy to the business experts – who went from consultants in the day to ‘dragons’ in the evening – before facing rigorous questioning and receiving feedback.

After the preliminary heats, two teams from the University of Kelaniya and the one team from the University of Colombo were chosen to compete in a final head-to-head challenge.

With only 15 minutes to prepare, the teams then faced a tense press conference-style grilling from four of the toughest business experts. After all the votes were counted the University of Kelaniya came out as Sri Lanka Flux 2012 champions and 2nd runner up team. I am proud to be a member of 2nd runner up team of this FLUX event.